I'm also a recent Emacs enthusiast. Many many years ago, I never felt productive with the navigation and keys.
Then, recently, I _really_ wanted to try org and thought "I'll force myself to use it". I started with Evil mode and Doom. I was blown away tbh. What I thought to be an "old" tool that would slow me down, is actually a massive booster (and fun!). My personal experience, of course.
I had a very similar experience, but I started with plain Emacs, and little by little adding what I needed. I was afraid of getting something really bloated, or not understanding how it all bundles together. I think it has paid off a bit, but the learning curve has been steep.
Evil/Doom never really clicked for me and I went back to Neovim because of it. There were always gotcha's or packages that didn't have evil support and the when the walls broke down it was kinda clunky. Now that you can script Vim with Lua (or Python/Ruby) I don't really think I care too much about Emacs' infinite extensibility.
Then, recently, I _really_ wanted to try org and thought "I'll force myself to use it". I started with Evil mode and Doom. I was blown away tbh. What I thought to be an "old" tool that would slow me down, is actually a massive booster (and fun!). My personal experience, of course.